To Be With Him In His Suffering

A Good Friday Meditation

Wisdom 2:1, 12-24; Psalm 22:1-21; Hebrews 10:1-25; John [18:1-40], 19:1-37

“God, grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering.” The violence of Mary’s anger surges inside her as they begin gambling for the bloodied rags that were her beloved son’s clothes.  The power of the anger frightens her, but at least it provides momentary relief from the anguish she’s been fighting against for so long. Mary is determined not to let Jesus see her agony – the hot pain of the sword piercing her own soul – just as the old man in the temple had predicted it would when Jesus was but a baby.  Her baby.  Her precious little baby boy.  Mary prays even more urgently now, almost demanding of God: “God, grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering. I can grieve later; he needs me now. Please God, give me more strength.”

It’s shocking, really. This is the same woman who history paints in pastel shades of purity—the gentle young maiden, so calm and compliant, so virginal and acquiescent, all sweetness and light, Our Lady of the Fairer Sex.  “Let it be with me according to your word,” she had said in anticipation of his birth. “Thy will not mine be done,” came the echo in the garden as he anticipated his death.  He came by it honestly, that abandonment to God’s will.

And now Mary sits at the foot of the cross, a forty-something woman, absolutely fierce in her fidelity to her son and his mission; an icon of the very self-giving love for which he is dying, and a testament to its astonishing strength. A woman with an incomprehensible capacity to see with God’s eyes, even as her own are assaulted with the horror of her son’s suffering. A woman who, unlike Peter, didn’t try to dissuade Jesus when he warned her of his coming death. Who didn’t have to be rebuked for “setting her mind not on divine things, but on human things.” And who didn’t abandon Jesus when he was handed over to the drones of a death-dealing empire.  She didn’t abandon him then and she’s not about to abandon him now, no matter what. 

This woman is ferociously faithful.

“God,” she insists again, “grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering.  To be here for him, and to be present with him. Just a little longer.” 

It has been an excruciatingly long time already. Mary has seen it all, has stayed with him every step of the way – the Way of the Cross that she sits beneath now – unable to stay, unable to leave.  She was there when the faces of the hate-filled crowd shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”—her body as tense as the moment years earlier when she had realized he was missing ...a 12-year old boy, alone and lost in the city, or so she thought. The terror that had gripped her as she searched, fearing she might never see him again.  It all came back so viscerally.

“Crucify him!  Crucify him!” Her heart broke for him as the very people to whom he’d brought healing shouted to see him whipped, flogged and broken. As the very people to whom he’d brought freedom shouted for him to be bound by nails to a cross.  As the very people to whom he’d brought life shouted for his death.  He loved these people!

But Mary knew that the more hatred they expressed, the firmer he became in his resolve to go forward. 

She knew that when he looked at their twisted and contorted faces, he saw through the hatred and violence to the beloved creatures God had created them to be—saw through their enslavement to the one he called the “Ruler of the World.” And she knew that the more their enslavement to evil was made manifest, the more determined he became to free them from its grip.  This was a hate he was willing to die for, because surely the only way to win this fight was with the power of God’s love. 

“God grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering. “

Mary was there too when Pilate’s goons roughly lowered the rude beam of wood across his shoulders. She saw the scars of their scorn in his eyes, the marks of their malevolence torn into his flesh. She had followed as closely as she could, pushing her way first this way, then that, desperate to get close enough for him to see her, to know she was there.  She wants him to know he isn’t alone—that he is loved, and honored, and precious in her sight – as the prophet Isaiah had written – loved, honored and so very, very precious. 

Then when she got close enough for their eyes to meet, she had looked at the bloodied and bruised face before her and had seen instead only the trusting and tender face that had shown her nothing but love.  Mary smiled at him through her tears and, in that moment, time stopped, all sound ceased, and she heard him whisper to her, “I will be with you always, until the end of the age.”  God grace me with the strength to remain with him in his suffering.

A moment later she was swept along again in the clamor and chaos of the crowd. Mary was there, too, when Simon the Cyrene was snatched from the sneering crowd to carry the cross for the weakening Jesus.  She was so grateful for his presence, that allowed her to walk right next to her son, supporting him as best she could, one hand always at his back.

She was there when the mysterious Veronica emerged, as if from nowhere, to wipe the grime of sweat, spit and blood from Jesus’ face—before disappearing again with the image of that face burned into her veil.  Mary wondered if she’d ever see that strange woman again, felt somehow intimately connected to her. 

Mary was there when, in the midst of all his suffering, Jesus spoke to the women of Jerusalem about theirs.  She was there each time he stumbled and fell, using all her God-given strength to support him and help him back up.  There each time, with her gaze fixed as if magnetically, on a different part of the body she would soon hold limply in her arms. Oh God how she wanted to make it all stop!

‘God grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering.’

The first time Jesus fell, it was his mud and blood-caked feet that caught Mary’s gaze. She remembered the humility and love with which he had washed everyone else’s feet the night before. 

The second time he fell, his left arm twisted at his side. Mary’s eyes fixed then on the palm of his hand—such a soft, tender piece of flesh, and she couldn’t stop herself from seeing the nail that would soon be driven through it. Involuntarily, Mary clenched her fist.

But the last time he fell was the hardest.  He was so utterly spent. Mary had quickly knelt next to him to help him up, but almost recoiled at the sight of his protruding ribs: She saw a sword piercing his side.  “A sword will pierce your own soul too,” she remembered. “God grace me with the strength to stay with him in his suffering.’”

Each time Jesus fell, Mary’s love gave him the strength to get up.  That same love gives her the strength to stay here, at the foot of the cross, as they gamble for the bloodied rags that were his clothes. 

And it gives her the strength, as Jesus prepares to give up his spirit, to assure him that she, at least, understands and believes.

Praying now the words for which she would be remembered, the words she prayed as a young woman with a womb full of hope and promise, Mary chokes out the words plainly and purposefully—in a sure, strong voice—to be certain hers is the last voice he hears.

“My soul magnifies the Lord,” she begins,  “and my soul rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me.”

God, grace us this Good Friday, with the strength to stay with him—as Mary did-- in his suffering.  Amen